I tend to be a rather symbiotic roleplayer - in that I tend to pose more and in more detail when other people in the scene do the same. This isn't a slam against anyone, and in truth I don't intend to do it - it's just something that happens. I might kick out a long, detailed, and multi-paragraphed intro, but if people respond with two or three lines each over the course of several rounds, my own poses will get shorter and shorter because I simply run out of things to say or hook into.

Conversely, my poses get longer and more detailed if the people I'm with do the same. Even if half of it is just meta fluff, I'd end up responding in kind because there's just that much more to actually respond to.

With regards to content, the same kind of style applies. I used to be the kind of player that would write up pages and pages of backstory - but I gradually withdrew from that until, now, I tend to just focus on question-and-answer type formats and leave the actual story nebulous; largely because of the years and years of experience that written backgrounds almost never get incorporated, or even mentioned IC. I know specific story beats, but actual details only get filled in if/when they come up IC. I've actually found that to be better for me as well, since it incorporates the context of the scene that the idea is brought up into how the character reacted to the situation.

Always, as a player or GM, plan to fail forward. This is probably the single most important thing I learned from the Wrath and Glory rules - and I cannot say enough how awesome that system is <even if you're not into 40k, the mechanics rock>. A failure is not a failure. It shouldn't stonewall or stop the scene until the players find a solution to the problem , or engineer a way around the problem. Failures should have consequences that go beyond everyone throwing dice at the issue until someone makes it- but they should be consequences in game; and they still can be used to move the story forward albeit not in the way the players might expect and would likely make the journey onward a bit more difficult.
I've seen too many games break because the players either can't figure out something, or they just can't make the roll necessary to do it in-character. I've also seen too many plots hinge on a character making a critical roll - and if they don't, they miss out on a crucial piece of information and cannot move forward, or they just keep rolling until they eventually make it. Some things don't get a retry. Some things logically shouldn't get a retry; but that doesn't mean they should be a hard stop.

Fear Me!

Yes, he did this to himself. Then did it to himself again after I rescued him.

Hello. Is the lady of the house in? Could I interest you in a lovely new vacuum cleaner?

I guess I've responded to enough of these that I should probably try and remember who the hell I was.

Crypt - Corak, Locke (Werewolf, not the kid), one or two other minor ones
Nightscape/Necropolis - Shen, Blake (Aka Slate, Aka ... whoever the hell else he turned into)
Crypt 2/Valley of the Damned - Colwyn
Chivalry (Post-apoc version) - Astynax (leonine mutant thing)
CrystalMush - Elrick, Solian, Evan, Damien, Berem, couple of others whos names escape me.

Manhattan by Moonlight - Jeremy (Bastet); Bullwinkle (Build Staff)
Cajun Nights - Jin
Monaco - Cody (Virtual Adept)
Mercyground - Ethan (Homid Silver Fang Ahroun); Some staffer whos name I forgot.
GarouMUSH - Jeremiah (Metis Ronin Galliard), Gunnar (Homid Get Theu... Godi)
Guilded Promises/Due Rewards - Thorne (Homid Get Ahroun), Dominic (Giovanni), Lion-o (Staff - the one that made me swear off staffing permanently)
Paris - Blaine (Homid Khan)
Pacifica - Some Keui-Jin; either Takeda or Kagero
Metro - Jaegar (Simba), Some other Keui-jin; whichever name I didn't use at Pacifica
Haunted Memories - Christian (Mastigos Guardian of the Veil; was there for a couple of months when the game opened)
Darkwater - Adam, Kane
The Reach - Kier, Rohan, Aramis, Cyrus (Roth), Vale, Elias, Riggs
NYC - ... Mage, Shadowname Vidocq (Mastigos Guardian of the Veil, 11th Question; forget his real name), Gideon
Reno 1- Thorne, Gideon
BITN - Cade
Eldritch - The Price (Cover was Grayson, I think)

Few other places, but I don't remember the character names. Few other characters that I don't remember the names of the places they went to:
Iain - Gwydion Sidhe turned Ailil (Some place that had a lot of drama with faestaff, and made me one of my best friends online ever - but I keep forgetting the name of the joint)
Ridley - Scatach Sidhe (I think this might've been Pandemonium)
Lazarus (Lasombra - some place set in Hawaii)
Locke (Giant City Gangrel; recent V20 game set in Florida who's name escapes me at the moment)
Brett - Ratkin Engineer (Name began with P. Or T. Or something. Think it was set in Boston? I don't know anymore. I barely remember my 20s)
Cassius - Nosferatu, failed proto-gargoyle looking thing that mainly quoted Shakespear. (Denver? Something?)
There's probably more; likely they'll come to me. Eventually.

Currently:
Fallcoast - Jericho, Shen, Domhnall
Reno 2 - Thorne, Dalton
Fates Harvest - Ridley

Have characters on Fear and Loathing and Fallen World, but I never figured out how to get them off the ground.
(Edit) - added staffalts that I remember.
EditEdit - fixed the name of a place I misremembered

Yeah. Funny story about that. When I first started dating my eventual-wife, and was more heavily into the goth scene, we once went out to a club with her wearing a leash that she had clipped to one of my belt loops.

Her mom saw us.
I said, without missing a beat, that she made a perfect fashion accessory.
Her mom thought it was hilariously adorable.

So, yeah. Not entirely on topic - but, leashes.

Cinnamon toast (dense, thick sliced bread, usually - Jamaican hardo bread is the best for this)
Tater Tots
Ramen

The biggest argument I tend to see is that there's no real restriction on using physical stats against other pcs - like you could beat someone into submission if you were stronger, but couldn't use Charisma/Presence/whatever to convince them to submit.

It might be tired, but I do think it's valid. Social stats and skills don't cost any less than physical ones, so they should at least have a comparable effect. I suppose there's a difference between 'hard' and 'soft' social stats - hard ones, like intimidate or subterfuge (in terms of lying), could actually change the flow of rp because you're effectively beating someone with a stat stick just as if you were doing so with a real stick. 'Soft' ones like persuasion or socialize are fuzzier; you're not so much forcing an issue as adjusting the flow of the scene. I'd equate it to the way Diplomacy worked in D&D 3; making the roll would not take an enemy and make them into your minion, but it would improve their general reaction towards you (They might go from outright hostile to at least willing to listen to what you have to say - even if they're under no obligation to take action).
The problem is, that's extremely hard to represent in a MU setting - especially if the person with the social stats misrepresents it or misunderstands how they work himself. The other problem as I see it is ,if you reduce the application of social stats (Even on a passive level) it likewise reduces the attraction to play social based characters when the points could be better or more efficiently spent elsewhere - and I'm not talking just about the attributes and abilities, but also all the merits that are built around those statistics.

@ganymede I speak this language well; also have another that I tend to use with a great deal of frequency <in certain variations>

'If I may ...' --> Listen up you primitive screwheads,

@flitcraft It really doesn't, though. Gnosis caps Arcana, but it's the only Power stat that does so for powers. A Primal Urge 1 Werewolf or Blood Purity 1 Vampire can still buy every level of Gift/Discipline they want; though the Power Stats do serve as requisites for some of the higher end merits. Conversely, both the max level of Arcana and the number of different Arcana you can have are limited by Gnosis on the low end.
On top of that, it also governs the pool you have to draw from and the maximum amount of pips you can draw per round - which has become fairly standardized in 2e. On that it's a level playing field.
Where it most counts is in terms of skills and stats; having a power stat higher than 5 means you can buy stats and skills at higher than 5, and allowing that for one group while categorically denying it to another is unfair. The argument that 'mages can boost their stats' doesn't hold anymore either, since
A> Physical disciplines now passively increase Strength or Stamina by their rating (And Dex, if you go for that obscure bloodline that has it) - that's without having to spend or activate anything.
B> Werewolves have gifts that also increase stats, on top of the stats that they get from shapeshifting.
Further, Gnosis still limits the amount of spells a mage can have active at any given time. The symmetry would be limiting a vampire to only a certain number of Disciplines active <both passively and used directly against someone> or the number of Gifts they can have up at any given time - neither of which is a rule that exists. If anything, Mages depend on their Gnosis far more than the other supers depend on their respective power stats, so if you hobble it while not doing the same for the rest you might as well just not have Mage there to begin with.

tl;dr Edit - Mages start off not being able to do a lot of things that other supers can do right off the bat; Gnosis helps them overcome that restriction before it starts giving them any real bonuses.

So, yeah. I've been considering a few things - some of which have already been mentioned:
***=Stuff and things and whatnot***

I remember, a couple of generations ago, the Ravenloft setting in D&D had a social modifier for how alien your character race was (for example, Half Orks); this was, as far as I understand it, less a question of 'hey, that guy looks different' and more 'what the hell is that?'. It worked in a horror setting, especially one where even normal looking people could be monsters and followed the typical Gothic horror trait of mistrusting outsiders (especially outsiders that already looked monstrous). It wasn't specifically about race, but race did factor into it; so, basically, I think it definitely depends on the setting.

On the flip side, I'll just paraphrase a line from the Humanis Policlub contact in Shadowrun: 'Who cares about that tan looking guy standing next to you, when that thing over there has hands the size of my head?!'

Now, now. Don't get all Crabby...
Ahem. But seriously, Battletech was my first gaming system - like, I started with a couple of the books still bearing the 'Battledroids' name in the early/mid-80s. I always loved how unique the mythos and technology was; for example, jumpship travel is actually instantaneous; but jumps can only cover so much distance, and it takes weeks to recharge between jumps. Or the fact that the mech reactors run on water as part of hydrogen fission - which makes it one of the most valuable resources in the galaxy. Or the fact that as far out as humanity has explored it's never come across another sentient race.

@Ganymede Dia-mond shark! (Do do do do do do do)

Dunno about the era, but I always had this idle story in mind about a mutant type with the ability of Forge, but for electronics; as a way to bring 'modern' tech into a period game. Like, a guy in the 1950s or 60's seeing Tesla's diagrams and coming up with a way to actually make it work, or tooling around with a cell phone after watching Star Trek.

@Derp You know what you did. Or maybe you don't know what you did - in which case; see what happens when you don't pay attention to what you're doing?

@Derp Fair warning; it will now, always, sound like that.

@Derp said in Tastes Less Carrot-y:

@Sunny said in Tastes Less Carrot-y:

I can hear this image.

Does it sound like this?

I tend to be a rather symbiotic roleplayer - in that I tend to pose more and in more detail when other people in the scene do the same. This isn't a slam against anyone, and in truth I don't intend to do it - it's just something that happens. I might kick out a long, detailed, and multi-paragraphed intro, but if people respond with two or three lines each over the course of several rounds, my own poses will get shorter and shorter because I simply run out of things to say or hook into.

Conversely, my poses get longer and more detailed if the people I'm with do the same. Even if half of it is just meta fluff, I'd end up responding in kind because there's just that much more to actually respond to.

With regards to content, the same kind of style applies. I used to be the kind of player that would write up pages and pages of backstory - but I gradually withdrew from that until, now, I tend to just focus on question-and-answer type formats and leave the actual story nebulous; largely because of the years and years of experience that written backgrounds almost never get incorporated, or even mentioned IC. I know specific story beats, but actual details only get filled in if/when they come up IC. I've actually found that to be better for me as well, since it incorporates the context of the scene that the idea is brought up into how the character reacted to the situation.

I'm not staff or associated with the game - just your average Star Wars nerd. If I remember, though, there was no 'falling' in this period - all aspects of the Force were allowable to be studied, with a preference towards a balanced view. If you started showing too much of a preference towards one side or another, you were put in detention on the moon opposing whatever side you were leaning towards to meditate and get back into synch. I never got that there was some sort of horror or taboo against any kind of study though.